THE WALFORD UNDERGROUND AND NICO
There are repercussions aplenty re the Patrick/Patricia shock revelations. Everyone calls Pat an old slappah and frowns disapprovingly at JoJo for being a stirrer. Trinidad grovels to Yolande, who overacts like crazy now that she has got the sniff of a decent storyline. She gives Trinidad a hard time (re how could you hurt me, why did you do it if it meant nothing to you, how can I ever trust you again blah blah blah). Trinidad: “Pleeeeeese!!” She says she’ll think about it. Pat goes round to talk to her and says that Yolande would be a fool to give up on TD and that Pat would pity the fool who gives up on TD. She lets Yolande slap her one and Yolande starts going on about Pat is a cheap narsty old whore with ugly earrings. Pat says “Well if Trinidad wanted to cheat on you it must because you are rubbish in bed or something.” Yolande is sad and packs her bags. TD keeps a low profile at the shop and down the pub until Babs tells him to get his arse home and grovel some more. He chases her to the tube station but Yolande gets on the tube – or not! She was only pretending! She says she’ll stay if TD gives up the car lot and is nice to her for the rest of his life.

Bradders doesn’t want to have anything to do with Jojo now that she has revealed her dark side. Jojo is sad. Bradders seems to genuinely want to go out with JoJo so maybe he is straight after all, or maybe he thinks that JoJo would be excellent faghag material and would be ideal to take along to G.A.Y. to kidney punch all the spiteful little bitches there who give you a hard time for wanting to, say, walk past them to go to the other bit of the club…

Ian is poncing around making everyone record video messages for Cathy – messages to beyond the grave! Yes, it turns out that she has died in a mystery car accident with her husband (which makes me think of Gillian Taylforth’s court case re fellating some bloke in a car. At least he would have died happy…). Ian starts pressing buttons on his calculator like a mentalist and won’t talk to PantoJane etc. In the end he locks himself alone in the caff and starts mopping furiously (but nothing can wipe away his memories of Cathy!!). For some reason it is Martin who talks Ian into letting him in. He comforts the Bealemeister and makes him cry and let it all out etc.

The moominchild has been packed off back to Moomingran and Poline and Straight Pike are still at their honeymoon. Martin is looking forward to some time alone with Moomin and specifically Moomin’s lady parts. Moomin is suffering from lesbian panic attacks though and schedules a dinner round Dot’s (but tells Martin it was Dot’s idea). Martin misses it because he is too busy “comforting” Ian and passive-aggressively doesn’t phone Moomin or tell her what he was doing next time he sees her so they can have a pointless row. Next day Moomin promises to cook a special meal but Martin finds out that it was not actually Dot’s idea for the dinner and, instead of confronting Moomin, passive aggressively invites all the blokes round for a poker game at his house without telling her and then won’t talk to her when they all land round. (Everyone looks forward to winning money off Bradley but he turns out to be an internet poker ace and wins – gee I didn’t see that coming). Everyone squirms around uncomfortably as Moomin and Martin have a “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” attack. Naomi says that Moomin can stay with her if she wants and Moomin hisses “This is my MARRIDGE we’re talking about!” Later on she begs Martin to talk to her if he cares about their MARRIDGE and Martin walks away. Ooo! Harsh! I must have missed a bit because next thing you know they are all lovey dovey again and Moomin has forgotten that she is a lesbian. Martin is just about to do her on the kitchen table (Poline would disapprove of such unhygienic practices, methinks) when there is knock on the door. Who could it be?

It is some seedy bloke called Bert who is a comedy northerner who says stereotypical things about how southerners are unfriendly. No Bert, they’re only unfriendly to annoying bastards like you. (PS my family are from Sheffield so I’m allowed to make fun of northerners). He is looking for Straight Pike but spends an episode flirting with Yolande, hanging round the pub and muttering incomprehensibly about ginnels and whippets etc while hovis advert music plays in the background. The B&B is shut so he breaks into Poline’s house and surprises the young love/hate birds. He says that he is best mates with Pike and Pike would def let him stay. Martin and Moomin have dilemmas.

God, this is already really long and I haven’t even covered Phil Daniels and his annoying brats yet. The daughter (at first I think she looks like a less squinty version of Renee Zellwegger – I later decide that I’m wrong but I’ll call her Renee anyway) has apparently left her hubby in Cyprus because his family are a bunch of meddling bastards or something. She keep huffing and going to her room to cry so this takes about 15 hours of TV to discover. Phildaniels puts off his holiday a bit to try to sort it out and goes to the family’s Greek restaurant to talk to them. The sharp featured hubby Nico is there and says he still wuvs Renee and wants to take her back – he arranges to come round to talk to her but then Nico’s stereotypical greek dad (lets call him Stavros) wants to come too etc. When Renee finds out she whines and huffs a lot, making her the most annoying new character by a long shot (I’ll need a new poll at this rate) but eventually shows up to the meeting. Not only is it Nico and Stavros but a host of aunts and uncles etc too. They start reeling out a list of things that is wrong with Renee (doesn’t like taramosalata, does like the Turkish entry in the eurovision song contest etc etc) while Nico sits there pulling sad faces. Phildaniels tries to keep the peace but there is a big fight anyway, Phil punches Stavros in the face and lots of Pat’s ugly knick knacks are dashed to the ground. It drags on for hours – Phil apologises, Stavros won’t accept apology, Nico comes round to plead with Renee and says he wuvs her, Renee agrees to take him back, Nico spoils it all by talking about going back to Cyprus and working in their restaurant again, Renee moans that he is browbeaten by his family blah blah blah. It all ends up with Renee crying and alone and Phildaniels postponing his holiday once more. Could Nico’s family be the new Di Marcos (vaguely Mediterranean? Check! Work in Mediterranean style catering? Check!?) Do we need or want new Di Marcos?